India to support Japan's candidate for ADB President post

Tokyo: India Monday said it will support former Japanese Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Takehiko Nakao for the post of President of Asian Development Bank (ADB).

India's commitment to support the Japanese candidate was revealed by the visiting Finance Minister P Chidambaram at conference hosted by the Japan National Press Club here.

He further said ADB "must lend more to the developing countries especially for infrastructure and sustainable development".

The post of Manila-headquartered ADB chief fell vacant following resignation of Haruhiko Kuroda, who left the multilateral lending agency to join as Governor of Bank of Japan.

The 67 member states of ADB will vote by April 24 to elect the President of the lending agency.

According to news agency Kyodo, Nakao is certain to become the next chief of ADB as he is the only candidate.

Kuroda, who was ADB's longest serving president, led ADB's growth with its operations tripling from USD 7.4 billion in 2005 to USD 21.57 billion in 2012.

He oversaw ADB's first general capital increase in 14 years, which tripled its capital base to USD 165 billion, and two replenishments of the Asian Development Fund, which raised over USD 23 billion to help meet the needs of ADB's poorest member countries.